joining us now we are following that breaking news where 3 people have been killed in a knife attack at a church in the southern french city of nice several others have been injured in that attack the city's mayor has said this is a terrorist attack let's cross live now to al-jazeera bernard smith he joins us live from paris bernard just give us a sense of the timeline how you did this on rule this attack that we're learning about it's happening in the city of nice. more details coming in at the moment but it happened now at about 9 o'clock or just before 9 o'clock local time that's just over 2 hours ago and we understand many from what the mayor of niece is saying christiane as strong as the he says that it seems the attackers got into the church and attacked people in the church

we now know at least 3 people have been killed one of the victims a woman. was beheaded. says that it seems that one of those who was killed was the church warden more details still coming through the attack was quickly reasonably quickly after that after these attacks was detained by the police it seems he was shot and injured he's alive he's being treated in hospital for his injuries. christiane there strozier he says it's kept shouting allah akbar even during whilst he was being detained by the police so that's the latest details we have at the moment and also we're told that president emmanuel mccrum is heading down to nice. just burn it just give us a sense of how the situation is because this is not the 1st attack that france has

seen in recent days is it not this does follow that attack in the north of the country where a teacher was beheaded and that led to a significant number of protests that are not. yes this attack follows the murder of the teacher samuel a patsy he was killed as he walked home from school in a paris suburb and it's understood that mr petit was targeted because he'd given a class on secularism to students at his school he was a widely regarded and respected teacher and during in this class on secularism teaching children about the right to free speech he'd shown cartoons of the prophet muhammad cartoons that many muslims find offensive this angered muslim

parents it sparked a lot of anger on social media this got through to this 18 year old chap chen who was a permanent resident here in france and he travelled some 50 kilometers from where he lived in the days of followed the outrage. of the complaints over samuel pepys class and he murdered samuel petit beheaded him on the street as he walked home from school but of course a very shocking and brutal murder shocked fronts. teachers are sort of highly regarded in and respected in many ways it shocked france and it came off the back of the presence of france to explaining how he wanted to crackdown if you will on what he's sore as extreme islamic conservatism he'd already been talking about this and in the wake of the murder of samuel patsy there

was a broader crackdown on there were some arrests on people who'd been on terror watch lists in france a mosque in the paris suburbs was closed for 6 months because the mosque. had put on facebook on social media this video of a parent complaining about samuel patsey and the consequence of that particularly for example the closure of the. mosque was that of course the the vast majority of muslims in france are. not involved in any way and of interest in any tour in this sort of extremist activity but there were complaints that everybody was being blamed for the behavior of warm. one individual when this most was close there are a 1000 people that go to that mosque and they're saying why are we all being punished because somebody here published a video so but the tension that has been created over. in the last weeks well

certainly and that's just in the last week bernard but this does seem to be a recurring theme in fact that it has been for many years now and in france we have seen these tensions between extremists and then that brings the focus on to them and the muslim community on the whole in the stretches back of course to those attacks in the bats a can only do just tell us more about this inherent tension that we have between france and its. population. well as i say the vast not sure the vast majority of france's populous muslim population would would all feel a tension with the state but the problem that france the challenge that france has had is avert a government level it holds very dear it's principles of secularism that divides

the church from the state and this was introduced to get rid of the influence of the catholic church at the beginning of the last century and this is why france introduced this division of church and state in more recent years the challenge france has hard like other european countries is to integrate into its society immigrant population and france's immigrant population is mainly muslim coming from former french colonies and everybody who goes to a french school is taught about the values of republican republican republicanism excuse me and and secularism and the french model of lacy to say is that you are expected to accept the french system no question this is how it is in france and you are expected to to accept that way of living slightly different from the more multicultural approach that you might have in in the united kingdom for example so

the strain has always been in this way france imposes its secularism a secularism on how some corners of france of france is muslim community feel under fire because they don't. because of the religion they follow ok bernard it's really going to stay with this for just a moment just for any of yours who are joining us here on al-jazeera a quick reminder of that breaking news coming out of nice in the south of france as prosecutors. accusers are saying that a terror investigation has been opened into this nice time the mayor. has said that the person suspected of carrying out that knife attack is currently in hospice oh and we understand that 3 people have been killed in that knife attack in the city of nice bernard smith is in paris

for us he's keeping across all of the detail for. you mentioned earlier that the french president emmanuel micro will be heading to nice this is certainly a terrible time for france because not only are they dealing with the coronavirus pandemic but night we have this appears to be in what the authorities are investigating as a terrorist incident there. will come i expect to see from the government in the coming few hours baronets. well we've had a minute's silence in the french national assembly earlier today it was meeting as it happens to discuss the new covert lockdown that begins essentially tomorrow in

france on for begins on friday in france so already the nation preparing itself for that as a 2nd wave hits france as it's hitting the rest of europe and it's hitting it strongly and there's a lot of people in hospital increasing numbers of hospital admissions forcing the french president to go make an address to the nation last night explaining why this 2nd not 2nd locked down slightly modified from the version in spring was being put into place. so already there was that issue there have been in the last couple of weeks tensions between france and other muslim population muslim majority countries particularly with turkey now and other countries calling for a boycott of french products and french companies because 'd of 'd emmanuel micron's crackdown on elements of france's muslim society following the murder of samuel petit so those tensions were with there already tensions at an international

. level as i say with some muslim majority countries. in france itself. it was i would say after the murder of samuel patsy there was more shock. and anger than tension. but now with what's happened in nice this morning people i can imagine there will be increased tension that having said that of course because of coded most people will have it will be having to stay home anyway so most of the country confines of their homes only essential travel for shopping and exercise and if you have to go to work you're allowed outside your home ok. burnet stay with us for just a moment you mentioned that minute's silence being called in the national assembly world the presidents of the national assembly has addressed

members of parliament calling on them to observe a minute of silence for the victims and for their families. the pull of their colleagues we've just found out is the prime minister was speaking that an extremely serious attack has taken place and nice and that according to fragmentary information that i have at least one person has been killed possibly more i'm talking in the conditional as i don't have more information whatever happens i'm asking you in these tragic circumstances to observe the minute silence in solidarity with the victim or victims and all of their loved ones. that was the president there of the french national assembly addressing the parliament which of course was in the middle of dealing with the coronavirus debates bernard we had the president of the national assembly passing on his best wishes for the victims of those who were affected due to be know any more about the individuals who were

killed or indeed the attacker. it's only all happening at the moment how it breaking in the last couple of hours we know very little about the attacker apart from the fact that he it's a it was male he's still alive he was shot by police after the attacks and he's being treated in hospital for his injuries kept shouting allah akbar according to the manner of nice christian strozier and the mare also saying that one of the victims appears to have been the churchwarden and a female victim was beheaded we don't know the nature of the injuries to the other to the other victims except that there are several other people suffering knife wounds because the attack was armed with a knife. and so. the whole area around the church in and around nice now has been

locked down not a damn church right in the heart of nice. and the police now of course. identifying the attacker his connections is origins and again funds will be going through the authorities will be going through the process of trying to understand what provoked somebody to commit such a brutal attack that any ordinary person would find incomprehensible and horrifying how it does seem to be a particularly brutal and again this does have eccles with the attack on the teacher so you're paid see not that long ago the fact that we understand this from the mayor of the city. he said that one of the victims had been the head seeds the mayor also was talking.

of islamofascism and reason the point that. the attacker shouted far as he carried out that attack really drawing attention to the. the the fact that they were trying to bring islam in see this. it does seem to be something of a tension does that not right now bernard. yes there is i mean 1st and foremost we have to concentrate remember that 3 people have been murdered in a church and of course that is the priority for the police investigation that is where people's faucets are with the relatives of those victims and the people who have been injured as well who beating being treated in hospital this was a brutal and violent attack clearly and the police quickly were

able to arrest the attacker but there will be questions on who he was if he was known about to before this is the challenge of police often have is if people are been on their radar for their activities or if they've been highlighted by other people for things they said in the past things they posted on social media all these things will be investigated. the the concern for the many muslims in france perhaps around 10 percent of france is population around 7000000 people call themselves muslim is that they. are all being tarred with the same brush all shouldering the blame for people who they will tell you are simply using their religion as an excuse to commit these brutal murders people who in islam can't find any reason why these sort of this brutality can in

any way be justified or not is what the vast majority of france's muslim population will say because we've had to do these stories before unfortunately there is no justification in their minds for the brutality meted out towards some your patty the teacher who was beheaded for the brutality at the bat's a clan or the charlie hebdo magazine or this latest attack inside a church in nice there will be no excuse for it will most of the. as muslims will tell you that of course but they've. been being blamed all my. crackdowns because of what has happened in india and we also understand that this feeds into a political tension as well which is playing out in france of course there are. leaders in france who will be looking to. capitalize on this but we do understand

the national front in the pen has also. weighed in on this and. has certainly weighed in on the the tensions between the french secularism and the . muslims who live in france the tension that exists there this is not something which has happened in the last couple of weeks paranoids there is very much those who who would wish to capitalize on this. well before the murder of some your patsy front emanuel macron had been under pressure for not being tough enough on terrorism he faces a presidential election in 2022 when it's possible again he will run off against marine le pen from the far right national front party so he's under pressure

to. from the right to be seen to be to be cracking down he spoke before the murder before the murder of samuel patsey about what he called islamic separatism and there was a crackdown on nascent views islamic separatism as an attempt by some to impose conservative islamic beliefs that eclipse the traditional values of the french republic macron and in his speech it should be said was also a pains to point out that is important that people are allowed to practice their religious beliefs without interference the emphasis was on what he called islamic separatism but not on muslims practicing their beliefs is what he is is what he said of course so now limits of his speech were picked up over other aspects of the speech however since then we've had the murder of samuel patsey and following his

murder there was a broader crackdown again. there were arrests of people on france's. terrorist watch lists there were threats to expel people already in jail for various offenses and this war mosque that was closed in paris for 6 months as an effective affectively as a punishment for the in mom who'd published a facebook video on facebook of a parent criticizing the class that some real pity had given so in the wake of all of that and in the wake of the last couple of weeks of the international. tension building again in some muslim countries where the some muslim majority countries where the bin calls to boycott french france and french products that has now it seems led now we have another attack today in nice and there will be more questions on 1st of all how something like this can be prevented. and

be more broader look again france's. secularism is it's known and. allowing people to freely. their religion their religions ok bernard smyth fair keeping up to date on this from the french capital paris bennett thank you very much indeed let's get some more now on the story we can bring in and judy cherry on the phone she's the founder of the security risk consultancy terrorists. good to have you with us here on al-jazeera. my 1st question i guess is why would you say a city like nice has been the target in this instance. well for the moment 1st of all we have to recall that we don't have to get the only information about the profile of. ethical profile and we don't know exactly who did the

motivations of that fact but it sure that the new season of course. the big city which has already unfortunately a story with. terrorism because as you may. remember that we had the 2000 the 16. rugby at that in the. fall that specific city but yet that could be that could have been such as i could have been. cured in the another i mean there is just the the site which has been shown and here you see is because it's a religious. area so these things so that mean that we

can analyze that as. an action of reaction against what. some muscling them fellows have a maybe understood that they have been hurt by the kerry cat there and they want to twopenny shayna where the other religions for having. that on the region so that can expand the choice of the site. that has to beat. i mean that's pretty clear as there are. more investigation than. who is the. 2 movie was leading there and so on and so on well that were quite bad but the reason i ask. specifically nieces as you mentioned there was that truck attack on best today when. at least 90 people were killed. i'm just curious as to whether you think there are any specific

. ethnic tensions in that city in the south of france which makes it more susceptible to these kind of attacks or are not. a the same thing from parish to you know if. you're in paris. it's because paris is under. 15 so i mean maybe kind of content but we have to check if it really. choice for. specifically. more because the city has been around you heard well i mean ok. you're right to point out that we do not know at this stage the motivation for the attack we don't know. where we're still waiting

to find out if there is terrorism or not it is being investigated as a terrorist attack but from the details we do understand it does seem like it could be a copycat attack of some kind coming as it has a week after the murder of some your pets the fact that somebody was reportedly beheaded in this attack given this do you think this is surprising that the authorities were unprepared because we saw these copycat attacks after the. attacks following charlie hebdo. we did see an element of copycat attacks people being held hostage and so on in the jewish supermarket. if that's not something that antiterrorism forces in france would be looking for 1st of all. we have received many are those the. she was.

regarding the possibility of similar are tied in france and not going in france also you know the french interest of roads. led to the crims of. 1 1 embassies of forces of french words so that we receive such a lair. don't forget that we have also a very special a national context. and. 1 we impact of. the really reaching of the charlie of those caricature but also due to the. president's position regarding the. let's say the islam and muslim community and to. fight against radical islam in front so that

has created a very big. let's say diplomatically the understanding with the many many countries not that many opinions but also governments in the arab world in the specifically but also in asia. so these particular 5 international context. no context the president or to out of turkey you know bigger governments we are very critical of france's. position and the comments of about omicron but none of them are suggesting that muslims should take matters into their own hands and attack churches to. what i mean is maybe you have seen that i mean there is some purpose and also some of the biker and so on i mean such acts and actions show that there is little

kind of ungar in the muslim opinion that doesn't mean that has created the had facts of course but i mean is that some of some people who are walking while living in france 1 at the call may have been let's say who should i mean. how to say that. influenced by certain. courses radical discourses against france we see in this context is what by trying to to mean i mean ok. but this is certainly something france is no stranger to these these terrorist attacks in particular the terrorist attacks with. the extremist element. given this do you think the french antiterrorism forces are prepared or does this kind of attack sort of demonstrate that they're

overseas threats to a certain degree. father memories flits. d 9 9 more of course they're. trying to be always ready that job let's say but. they are a lot. mobilized to fight against radical islam as well that's been that's we do it in the french you know we don't consider that people are only related and they are 1 trying to. acting. because when there's a just like a band they want to to somebody is because there is a kind of inside sides inside from. let's say we have some. radical islam speeches and association organisations that don't push too but truants people. know

there is. the way how the stories see. the whole the whole picture you see so of course it's very i think they will concentrate on those who may influence as a prevention walk. in the sense that i'm of course playing to. the. i don't you fight before the action that somebody wants to mean prefer something but 1st of all what he's a new way is just they won't. let us and the money tore. all the people who are holding the speech slamming speech. because i mean the the french. culture that they

have is a part of course is that good because that speech may not only put the program with rip the leaking away but also under the rule of security but also. the way that can push to violence. ok great so get your thoughts and judy cheli there the founder of the security risk consultancy terrorist giving us some context there thank you so much for your us if any of us are just joining us here on al-jazeera just a quick recap of the breaking news that were were bringing to you this is a knife attack in the city of nice which happens earlier this which happened earlier today i only a couple of hours ago or so. 3 people we understand have been killed

many others have been injured and the attacker as far as we understand is in custody al-jazeera is bernard smith is live for us in paris he's been keeping across the story for us bernard just start us off by giving us some of the key points what exactly do we know at this stage about this attack in this. our information on this attack is still coming in but we know it happened just before 9 o'clock local time that's now just 2 and a half hours ago when the attacker. walked into got into a. church right in the center of nice and attacked people there. we understand that now 3 people were killed one of the victims a woman was decapitated by the killer and other people 2 other people were also

killed and several other people have suffered other knife injuries as well the mayor of niece christiane ostrosky says that the attack was terrorism he says that one of the attackers a bigger part and one of the victims seems to have been the church warden we know nothing no other details about any of the victims so far we know that the attacker was shot to by the police as he tried to escape and as he was being arrested he kept shouting allah akbar according to the manner of nice he was injured clearly injured he was shot by the police and is currently receiving hospital treatment french president emanuel macron is on his way to nice that's after earlier today there was a silence in france's national assembly which had been meeting this morning to

discuss new code restrictions there was a silence that held as the news of this attack came through and this is certainly going to have france reeling once more because this follows another attack a week ago where a teacher was killed brutally. after he had shown his students cartoons of the prophet muhammad's. we obviously we don't know bernard at this stage. if these attacks are links if there is any we don't understand what the motive is or anything but this is the 2nd brutal attack to shock the nation within a very short period of time. yes samuel patty was murdered on his way home from school he'd been hit the earlier given a class to some students explaining friends france's concept of secularism and free

speech and in that class each shown children cartoons caricature was of a prophet mohammed this offended. some offended the parents of some of these children and in the days before the murder of samuel pattie there was increasing online anger towards the teacher in the school and this seems to have been the motive that provoked an 18 year old chechen immigrant to travel some 50 kilometers from his own home to the school and murder samuel patsy that murder. was shocking he was again decapitated on the street in broad daylight and the brutality of the murder shocked france it spontaneously brought widespread nationwide protests in commemoration of some real patsy and in support of the system of lacey say they have in france the essential system of secularism separates the church and the

state it's very rigidly enforced in france and before the murder of samuel for petty in fact emanuel mccrum had given a major speech about his his views on islam saying that islam needed an enlightenment much like the christian and light them and that it happened centuries past he talked about islamic separatism and a plan to crack down on islamic separatism which is what he viewed in the under the tent by conservative i thought by some to impose conservative islamic beliefs eclipsing sort of traditional values of the french republic with those being secularism he was widely criticized in parts of the muslim world for what was seen by some as a patronize ing speech a speech given by a non muslim to muslims about what the problems were are as he sees that with their

religion so that started the debate then we had this murder of samuel patsey so all of this this attack today can be seen in the context of a the continuing challenge that france is having to to enforce the for the state to enforce its strictly rigid version of secularism while allowing people to continue to practice their own religious faiths macron did say in the same speech how important it was that people should be able to freely practice their religious faith he did say that but as with all of these things. particularly when they're on these hot button issues bernard the nuance tends to get lost does it notes how have people in france been reacting to this specifically have a french muslims been reacting to this because whenever there is certainly whenever there is an attack of this type this certainly feel like you know they have to.

come out and say this isn't in the name of islam but it's also quite difficult for french muslims to practice in france when they see their traditions and cultures being attacked in the name of secularism so so high you have french muslims been been reacting to the speech by micro-loan on the the attacks which happens in its wake well i think. in the in the wake of the murder of samuel patchi i covered the fallout from the arts and we were speaking to french muslims at a mosque for example that had been in a paris suburb that had been closed for 6 months because the mom of the mosque posted on facebook a video of a parent complaining about the class samuel petit gave before before his murder and many example of how many french muslims feel that they're all being targeted

for the actions of the tiniest of tiny minorities a 1000 people use this mosque they will have nowhere to go and pray for the next 6 months because the mosque has been closed because of the actions of the imaam so there was a feeling that they were being all being targeted and or being singled out just because of their faith because of some. a very small number of people use the faith of islam as an excuse to commit these murders and that is what most of the people of the muslims of lou spoken to will say that these people is nothing in islam. that allows the gondolas what has been happening condones these murders and we all and we feel that we are all being singled out because of the actions of a few that's the challenge from which the state harsh ok bernard smith fair live from paris for now i thank you very much indeed for viewers just joining us we're

bringing you rolling coverage here on al-jazeera all that knife attack in nice 3 people we understand have been killed in this attack the attacker has been the attacker has been. arrested understand he's being treated in hospital but he is still alive the mayor of nice has said this is being investigated as a terrorism attack. let's get more now on this for we do know coming up here the italian prime minister does that because has condemned the vile attack in nice so certainly this news has been spreading far and wide at let's say get more on the the european perspective of this white knight of focus here going issue or is the chairman of

the munich security conference on the former german ambassador to the united states he joins us now from berlin good to have you with is here on al-jazeera certainly the news of this attack coming through another deadly attack in this very shocking you can't help but hearken back to the 2015 the 2016 when really. see lots of these attacks but they were just confined to france in racine a lot of these terrorism attacks using islam as a pretext happening across europe do you think that there is we're likely to see more copycat attacks across europe well i'm afraid i'm afraid we cannot exclude and. of what is becoming increasingly apparent of course is. the threat to our

societies. to the global community of of acts of terrorism not only by large non-state actors but. individuals by citizens. who surprise us their extreme brutality i'm afraid that will be with us for some time to come and that is why we need to try to strengthen. the resilience of our societies both with regard to internal challenges and threats of this nature but also of course the larger external threats and challenges which were the ones that i have tried to cover in in my recent book and what if we look at the

the that the xterra whole challenge is certainly back at the last time these saw a mass terrorism attack was that that truck attack on bastille day of course which killed around 90 people i understand and this was happening at the time where there was the turmoil in syria when the when i saw were were at their peak. fast forward 4 or 5 years for an ice solar supposedly had been vanquished in the words of the u.s. presidents it would seem that do you think europe has has fallen in. a sense of complacency that we're no longer because i saw has been vanquished that there is no longer this the threat of extremism. i wouldn't i wouldn't. call. european.

views an expression of complacency i think european leaders have have indeed been aware of the fact that. terrorist threats have in way dispersed they're not only coming from large moralists established groups with names like eisel or are quite al-qaeda or so but they come from. individuals who have been radicalized so i think the efforts which many of our research institutions and and and n.g.o.s have undertaken to examine ways to try to help to d. radicalize or or actually to prevent radicalization of people who are actually not coming to europe from syria or from other countries.

with mostly muslim community but who actually have actually been living in our societies so for a long times of they've been apparently radicalized while living in western europe that's the fact so i think the challenge for us politically is to figure out ways to help to prevent the radicalization of especially of young people. whether they are. they have a muslim background or not do to help prevent this type of radicalization of of of of terrorism by the way you know i think we in germany have not been spared we've had our share of of. terrible attacks not. not quite

that they mention that are fringe neighbors that have had to suffer through but we understand exactly what this is about and we share. this is the exact same questions. and the search for appropriate policy responses which must not include abandoning our principle liberties so this is a tough one for who are the western ideal of individual freedom of freedom of press of expression freedom of movement of freedom of the individual if we have to live with these kind of surprise attacks out of the blue. on an colonized tuesday morning in the middle of nice. terrible terrible i'm. only deeply saddened and. as sure the sorrow and the pain of

my many fringe friends but what had has since nations be tackling this this radicalization because we can talk about this in the abstract but this is all happening while we are in the middle of a global pandemic where western nations are taking away some of these rights and freedoms that we praise the freedom to move around the freedom to the to leave your own home the freedom to go to work the the situation that we are in is bringing about many of the conditions that cause frustration economic hardship frustration frustrations of not being able to to move arise and so it's almost like there is a pressure cooker building and this and even before the pandemic certainly there were tensions the communities were much more polarized than the certainly at any time

a few years ago also so what would you say the priorities should be for nations who want to prevent this kind of radicalize ation given we are in these these very stressful very poor arise times. i'm afraid there is not one single patent recipient for that but let me offer just a few observations 1st. there are a number of phenomena that. are certainly not helpful in terms of trying to prevent radicalization in france we've had for many years now the so-called bali year or the the suburb in areas that have been in a way like like ghettos of immigrants. who feel this is vantage

you've who feel for rightly or wrongly discriminated against who believe that they do not have really equal opportunity. so. creating opportunities. for these for these immigrant communities to be dissipated in in in our modern open society. is something which has to start you know at age 3 or 4 in. certainly. at the moment when when young children enters into school and we we see how our howard how how terribly difficult this is when we when we are being told that in the murder of some will be in france some days ago. students. from his own school from his class were among those

who pointed the the the murderer to their own teacher so. paying more attention giving more resources resources to says to schooling to adequate schooling to better schooling. and to and also to job opportunities obviously that's that's not that has got to be number one but 2nd . and you know i know that the book that we just published we're in danger the title was chosen with some deliberation i think the pandemic. we'll tend to think to make things worse not only in terms of global health. issues but it will of course lead to more countries south of the european union in africa in sub-saharan africa which will which will whether we

like it or not we will look like failing states which will be bankrupt ok. which will. not be able to combat hunger and disease we will see an increase in radicalization. i'm sorry your. migration verses so things are getting worse or they're likely to get many challenges lie ahead i'm sorry to cut you off there but thank you very much for sharing your thoughts and analysis both going isha go there joining us from a parallel just supplying you another a bit of breaking news we are hearing that a man has been arrested in jeddah in saudi arabia after stopping a guard at the french consulate there that's according see state television and this comes of course after that stabbing in nice

a stabbing attack where at least 3 people have been killed let's speak with peter allen he's a journalist he joins us from paris good to have you with us here on al-jazeera what were your 1st thoughts when you had heard this because france is no stranger to see these attacks unfortunately and a stabbing attack in a church in nice where 3 people have been killed stay assailants of course reportedly shouting allahu akbar what was the 1st thoughts that went through your head when you heard this. hello well i've been covering these terrorist attacks since january 2015 the 1st in a series of hauling out great years it was of course the charlie hebdo massacre in jenin 2015 pretty much consistently since then there's been some of whom attacks as a nice in july 26th when a truck drove in large crowds celebrating best deal day of all things john the

fourteen's and that truck killed 86 people and wounded many hundreds more so i must say the 1st thing that came into my head this morning when i heard 1st heard about this all looks back and knees but here we go again to put it in such an awful sort of the natural manner these attacks up with at the mentality much i was covering the beheading of samuel patty in the suburbs of paris a couple of weeks ago and of course that involved my again these are vicious violent vigils he take part in these terrifying attacks and of course what happens immediately afterwards is that collective guilt is spread among the muslim community in france very very large muslim community of app to 5w6w people and they saw her horrendously to stigmatize a sherm sue assaults on their their freedom to worship and incite and in fact their

freedom just to be normal people living in society and there's a feeling that these kind of attacks we got this morning are the extreme end of a reaction to that kind. of scenario and in turn says. why france what is this specific to france do you think we were hearing from our correspondent earlier that france of course has this law of late. secularism which is you know it. that is that is the rule of the day and that's almost you some critics might argue as a an excuse to stigmatize people who is here to whatever religion do you think this plays in seeing the tensions clearly exist within france why we're seeing these certainly these attacks happening. i absolutely do there's a long history of empty clericalism in france that is to say

a lot of people against organized religion per se and that fits in with your psyche of lace it's a bit less a take isn't meant to ban religion it's a myth that it's meant to ban religion lots of religious groups abrahamic religions as land christianity judaism and all flourishing plants but what's happened in recent years is that successive administrations of perceived as land in particular as a problem and that crosses over of course what france has colonial astray large muslim majority countries such as algeria and morocco until very recently there were colonies of finance lots of former colonial subjects to live in france a lot of them feel that they're extremely bad and treats it by the french state and yes there's a feeling that politicians on left and on the light use lasik as a chance to clamp down on communities they don't like very much now this will come

to a head buried recently over the charlie hebdo cartoons a lot of people courtrai these cartoons as just a bit of fun if you cataca trawls of certain figures death part more than that they are sorts on people's primary belief systems they are pornographic in nature a lot of them they are streaming visual licious portrayals for example of the prophet muhammad and indeed of muslims who worship the prophet muhammad and the problem is what happened particularly in recent weeks is it sounds very much like the mcconnell administration is making those cartoons official some people actually think those cartoons are being taught as part of a national curriculum that isn't true but that is a perception now and very recently a map. well i'm at home coming out and saying that these cartoons are great thing a lot farms should hold them are some kind of sacred ideal of local farms course

actually true at all these cartoons they clearly great licious communication and hate laws and yet somehow they're given a free pass and i share a lot of the cash we're seeing at the moment including what happened laney's could be somehow related to or do you think there's a recognition in france of the offense that this causes because certainly when you hear the right rightfully the the anger that people are expressing when they hear of the brutality of. a teacher being beheaded and terrorist attacks and attacking churches the line we hear from the french is that this goes against the ideals of the french republican of our belief system and appreciation in france that by yes you have freedom of speech but when you take that freedom of speech to

go against the ideals of some of your population that that can be viewed equally equally apparently. absolutely like this is one of the huge problems this whole discussion i heard. covered a lot of these terrorist acts in paris and indeed in need some in power of a moment of the debased heiress trustee is in need they are absolutely barbara it's everybody condemns them but you have got to be able to discuss those terrorist attacks in one context and the nature of the way 5 to 6000000 much french muslims are treated as well and at the moment there's an appalling conflation of the to this idea that if you speak out against attacks on is lamb and that the many muslims who live in france you're somehow supporting people that

madmen who go and beheading people and this is the huge problem with that or so to answer your question yes there's shock and outrage we all condemn this while terrorism but on the other i don't think there's a nut appreciation of how muslims feel and plans about these constant attacks on their religion and this portrayal of muslims through these charging up have the cartoons i keep coming back to these cartoons because they are very high profile of the moment a summit somehow being kreta less in outside a society just figures there to be not a lot that if you put any other social group in that position and said the government is going to support these attacks on you will be an up crime legislation is there to take people to court as land of hope to take people to court and something was lums these are the laws there's no blasphemy law and is

a battle or another very civilized countries including germany and poland isn't one here but there is a common law which allows you to say you. you're spreading hate persecuting people's lives by images which into the design or the debate should be happening beyond this terrible terrorism which is our present our ok peter allen there joining us from paris thank you very much indeed for your thoughts and your analysis of that situation thank you very much well we are getting news of another incidence this time in the french city of new police say they've shot dead a man after he threatened members of the public with a knife while shouting who are bar those of course is coming as we're continuing to cover that breaking news out of nice of course where a knife attacker has killed at least 3 people 3 people in

a church in nice the attacker of course has been taken into custody he has so a lot of and we understand a terrorism investigation has been launched i nice of course is no stranger to attacks with a series of them over the years 4 years ago a truck was deliberately driven into crowds celebrating best see the 86 people were killed and hundreds of others were injured now in 20153 soldiers guarding a jewish community center or stands by a knife wielding attacker he was sentenced to 30 years in prison and in 2316 people were injured in a bomb blast at a local government office that of course is just a selection of the attacks that we've seen in nice but of course bernard smith in paris we.